


Written And Unwritten

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst And Determinism, Beautiful Flowers Of Kismesitude, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-02-02
Updated: 2011-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack did not always hate the Queen. The Queen, however, has always hated Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written And Unwritten

**000:000:000**

At the centre of a hollow chamber that spirals like the inner labyrinth of the ear, a sphere of glass hangs suspended in a cradle of tubes and wires. It is filled with a clear iridescent liquid that glows softly, shedding a green light over the chamber walls, which are warm and smooth as seashell but more probably formed from bone.

Floating inside the sphere are two half-formed bodies, their tear-drop heads resting brow-to-brow and their hands interlinked. Both are coated in an opalescent caul, but one thing is immediately apparent: one carapace is the chalk-white of Prospit, the other the coal-black of Derse.

At the base of the incubation vat, where a thick cluster of wires trails down and vanishes into a groove in the floor, a ridge of bone is stamped with an unfamiliar insignia.

Jack knows he shouldn't be here. Paperwork awaits upstairs, and he doesn't want to disappoint the Queen on his first day as an Archagent, but there is something peculiar about the insignia which he cannot ignore.

Upon closer inspection it becomes clear that the barbed and contorted design inscribed upon the bone is nothing less than two interlocking crowns.

 _Jack_ , says a voice, which writes itself in seething letters, _I see you've found us_.

"What do you mean, Majesty?" he says, falling to his knees automatically.

The Black Queen emerges from behind a fluted pillar of violet bone, every bit as tall and elegant as he has been given to expect.

 _Stand up, Jack,_ she says, _Obsequious is not a good look for you_.

"What's going on?" He stands, knees shaking more than he cares to admit. "Who are these people?"

 _My sister and I_. The Queen glides over to the vat and rests a hand lightly on the surface of the glass. _We grow here and I instruct us in the ways of strategy and rule. When the time is right we will be sent back in time for our coronation._

"You have the Queen of Prospit right here and you're not gonna just pull her out of the tub and kill her? Majesty - sorry for speakin' out of turn, but - you could end the war today, everythin' would be over before it even began."

He knows already that it isn't going to happen. If the Queen in her infinite wisdom has suffered her traitorous counterpart to live for this long, the words of a new-hatched Archagent aren't going to change anything.

 _Quite apart from the fact that killing her would kill me - and I'm sure we don't want that to happen, do we? No, because that would be treason, and we flay and boil traitors, don't we? - it will not happen because it is not meant to happen. Besides, the White Queen and I have an agreement born of necessity. No decisive move can be made by either party. Once begun the war will never end. We have no choice._

Jack stands still and says nothing. He thinks of the three small counters which hang above the Great Hall. One, in lights of purple, documents the number of hatchlings decanted that cycle. The second, in gold, will tally the slain Prospitians when battle begins. And the final counter is ready to measure, in scores and then in hundreds and finally in millions, the ranks of Dersite dead.

 _It is a betrayal, I know,_ says the Queen, _I am sorry._

"Why are you tellin' me this?" says Jack, after a long, long while.

 _This discovery and your betrayal are inevitable. And I am truly sorry._

And the Queen is gone from his sight like a shadow when the light changes.

 **I**

 _The war is a game and the game is a virus, and like any virus it must be propagated._

In later days the Queen comes to him herself, uninvited. A shade, in her long grey dress and simple crown, like a particularly dull child's drawing of a queen. She tells him things he doesn't want to know and they pour through his blood like a fever.

 _Skaia is a living organism and we are particularly specialised cells. By all accounts we should be drones. Draughtsmen moving on a board._

He could perhaps reconcile himself to life as an automaton if the words didn't come from the Queen, the beloved Majesty, the Glorious Monarch herself. They have all loved her since before they were born and all along she has known this?

 _It is hard to understand, I know, my dear, but our consciousness springs from the game parameters only as a most unexpected byproduct. An emergent property, if you like._

Her words drip venom into honey, and every time she visits she sits a little closer to him, whispers a little more longingly, barbs her words more viciously.

 _It had to be you. Any other Dersite would have shrugged and forgotten it and got on with things, but Jack, you could never live with it._

 **II**

War is coming. Nobody will say it, but everyone knows it, and people roam the streets nervously, staring at the sky. Two of the orbs of the moon are illumined and the remaining pair will not stay dim for long. Jack sits at his desk, watching the video feed of the lifeless Grand Square, waiting for someone to do something.

Riot, goddammit, you cattle. Rise up.

He cannot tell them himself. The Queen has made it quite clear. He could scream treason all over the capital city, and if anyone listened - and most likely they would execute him and write a poem to the Glorious Monarch in his blood - the whole universe would be doomed, another casualty to the alpha timeline.

 _I'm afraid you're just going to have to live with the knowledge,_ says the Queen, _I know it hurts you._

No more apologies from her. The prototyping has driven her quite mad, he sometimes thinks. No longer content to lie to him, and then to tell him a truth that cuts more deeply. Now she has to humiliate him. It seems so petty, complaining about the goddamn uniform. That's what nobody understands. She makes him dress as a clown, a joke, so that he knows she has ultimate power over him, and that his very existence is a joke, manipulated into absurdity by the whim of a stupid child.

 _Oh, Jack,_ she says, _I think it suits you. Besides, have you seen the garish horror I have to wear? It's so skimpy, I feel ridiculous. To say nothing of these tentacles, honestly._

She does a twirl, and the delicate fabric of her skirt swishes around her thighs in a way that is undeniably distracting.

 _Now, don't stare, it's rude. Not to say treasonous._

In a flash she flicks the tip of one sleek tentacle swiftly against his cheek, leaving a slice that will turn into a welt, before swanning out of his office with a smile.

 **III**

There is a third light in the sky, and he has a summons from the Queen.

 _Archagent. I require your presence. At once._

She is clearly attempting to keep her voice calm, but there is a ragged edge of panic underneath it which both intrigues and delights him. He finds her at last in the chamber where they first met, alone. The spherical cloning vat is empty and drained of liquid, the two embryonic Queens sent off to do their duty in the past.

"Jack," she says, and he realises that she is unprototyped, and that this is the first time he has heard her voice undistorted by the power of the ring. She looks somehow more fragile, though still mad as a spider and twice as vicious. "They've gone. It's really happening."

"Yeah?" he says, "What am I supposed to do about it?"

"Well _nothing_ , Jack, that's just it, isn't it?" She is facing away from him, and there is something in her voice that suggests barely-modulated hysteria.

"Why ain't you wearing the ring?" he says, "What if I just wrung your little neck, what would happen to your precious timeline then?"

"Oh, would you, Jack?" she says, turning with a snarl that melts into an unsettling grin and then a sigh. "Would you do that for me?" She leans back against the glass of the vat and spreads her arms to each side as if pinioned there, before giving him the most terrifying come-hither look he has ever seen.

"Come back when you've smartened up a little, doll," he says with a grin. He's probably pushing it too far, but at this stage he can't bring himself to care what she does to him.

"You _dare_ ," she hisses, and twitches as though trying to summon her tentacles back to strangle him.

"Gonna have to put the ring back on for that," he says, and is surprised to see her face crumple, even at the thought. The ring rests on the palm of her hand, an innocent gold circlet, and not for the first time he wonders what it would be like to wear the thing and feel that power in him.

"It hurts," she whispers, "It really, really - the Prince of Derse prototyped a bird with a fucking sword through its ribcage, it's agony."

Jack can't stop himself laughing, bitter peals that echo throughout the spiral chamber. "Oh, god, this is too good," he gasps, "You... you enjoy that, darlin'. If all you want to do is whine at me, I'm going home. Heavy is the head and all, but _I don't give a shit_."

 _You show some respect or so help me I will cut you limb from limb, timelines be damned_ , she says. A shadow falls, and as Jack looks up he stops laughing. Great wings spread from the Queen's shoulders, silhouetted against the green glass. The curved blade of a thornblack sword extends from her midriff like a sharp streak of ink. If she is truly in pain, she gives no indication of it.

"Oh, very impressive," says Jack, "How many times did you practice that in front of the mirror?"

 _Jack Noir_ , she says, _Bow your head_.

"To you?" he says, "I don't think so. What kind of Queen are you? We're all parts of the same machine, says you. You don't deserve my respect."

She falls on him like a hawk on a mouse and bears him to the floor, clawing at his eyes with an insane fury unlike anything he has ever witnessed. He cries out sharply but she already has him pinned, his face crushed against the ground, her nails cutting into his neck, the weight of her pressing him down. He feels his rage and bitterness calming once more to a strangely comforting resignation. No more control.

 _I could kill you right now,_ she says, _Stop struggling or maybe I'll do it. It would ruin everything. Everything. Does it mean anything to you, Jack, that I hate you enough to do that?_

He tries to speak, and chokes out some approximation to "Why?"

 _Because you have a choice. I received word from my sister. She told me that you get to make a choice. Do you think I've ever had that luxury? Do you? Do you know, ah, do you know what the fourth prototyping is going to be, darling?_

"Nn?" he manages. She leans down and whispers, her lips brushing his cheek tenderly.

 _Knowledge. My dear sister was awfully secretive, as is her usual practice, but she is quite clear that the final prototyping will bring knowledge of a kind none of us can possibly bear. Do you look forward to that, Jack? Can you imagine what it will be like, to see every session, every timeline, every iteration of every mistake you are fated and compelled to make, played out in living colour? Won't that be fun?_

She slackens off her grip on his neck and lets herself float upwards on crow's wings, turning slowly in the green glow of the empty vat. Jack is left on the floor, gasping for breath and shivering.

"Place a good lot of trust in prophecy, don't you, doll?" he says, hoarsely.

 _Of course. It's all there is._


End file.
